Okay okay! I'm synth lover, can't blame it all on me! I like the lyrics in this one. The way the song is about a really bad relationship and the sort of story behind it. The music is not bad, I thought it was good.

I feel really stupid saying this. I like this song alot mainly due to the energetic music and the musical tune. I can't stand the lyrics and I can't stand Donny either but I got addicted to this one and the beat is good.

Sigh! It's way too hard to say which is better. I liked them a lot. The first two are about friendship and very deep friendship. The music is also really good. The third one is really beautiful, excellent use of synth, vocals, and lyrics writing. Very original type of bad. Sadly, I can't put all 32 favorites up.

They are all in no particular order. Same artist goes in one section. There are way too many to name and I'm definitely not naming them all.

One of the best musicians of the 20th century, and this is one of this greatest musical masterpieces.

There were so many great songs in the 80's, too many to list here. Other ones I really love are Save A Prayer, New Moon On Monday, Rio and A View To A Kill by Duran Duran (I really don't know why some people are ashamed of the fact that they liked this great band), We Didn't Start The Fire and Modern Woman by Billy Joel, True by Spandau Ballet, Land Of Confusion by Genesis and many more.

yes, they were brilliant too. especially the depressive atmosphere on the second (first album wthout Vince Clare who left to make Yazoo with Alison Moyet, later Erasure) album is cool. Forget all after 'music for the masses'.

There were other songs by John Cougar that were more popular but this one stands out as a personal favourite.

6. Heartland by The The

These group barely made a splash in North America but were big in their native Britain. Some of the best eighties music I heard growing up was on this English music show called "Top of Pops" where I first heard this song.

I'm the only guy I know who thinks this song is their best work. This song has a certain tranquility to it, slow and methodic.

1. Lips Like Sugar by Echoe and the Bunnyman

I just adore this tune, a must have for any retro collection.

Retro is particularly meaningful to me because nearly every song from that era has a specific memory attatched. If you're ever in Toronto check out a club called Whiskey Saigon on a Sunday night, about the best retro mix you'll hear anywhere.

A terribly misunderstood band that emerged triumphant, at least creatively speaking. Hollis, Webb, and Harris, along with producer-co-conspiritor Tim Friese-Greene, produced some wonderful work that was for the most part roundly and undeservedly ignored in America. This song actually got some airplay. If you check out no other band in this list, I strongly urge you to look into TT's back catalog. Start with "The Colour Of Spring" or "It's My Life"--if you start earlier you'll see them as a techno-pop outfit and probably be turned off; likewise if you get anything more recent you may be put off by their transformation into "organic" music some have compared to jazz. Hey, it's all good. I envy anyone the discovery process. I sure did enjoy it!

Hojo was and is a wonderfully uplifting artist, and on "Human's Lib" he approached pop perfection. There's nary a bad song on it, and "New Song" is so utterly appealing to me it got played over and over and over again. It's one of those albums I bought initally on cassette and then had to buy again as a CD because I wore the tape out!

Okay, so I misinterpreted the lyrics for so long. That's okay. This is still a wonderful tune, and the line, "oh let me fly, give me something to show for my miserable life" is so poignant it hurts. Great stuff, just what I came to expect from the Great Kate for so long. But when will we hear from her again?

7. Don't Give Up by Peter Gabriel with Kate Bush

When all else fails, this song can lift me out of the depths. True, it also made me cry, but as such it's something of a cathartic. And Kate, as usual, is simultaneously sensuous and comforting...as this song would have her be. Nearly perfect.

Okay, so it's a guilty pleasure. Sue me. Pete Burns ain't George O'Dowd, and I'm glad of it. There's room for both. This sound POUNDS. Plain and simple. Get out on the dance floor and shut up!

5. Rattlesnakes by Lloyd Cole And The Commotions

No one does an offbeat ballad like Cole, and this is one of the better ones he did with mate Blair Cowan and company. Only LC could intentionally mispronounce "Eve Marie Saint" so it would rhyme with "On The Waterfront" and have it work. Cole's solo work, especially the album "Don't Get Weird On Me Babe" is vastly superior, but it was recorded in the 90s and hence can't make this list. Pity!

4. Nemesis by Shriekback

I felt dirty listening to Shriekback and was almost horried that I loved it so. It was as if were the kind of music I'd hear playing at some forbidden ritual. Mercy, it was powerful. "Creepy" and "Insidious" are two words I hear applied to their music, and they fit. So does "Brilliant".

I am not a big fan of Morrissey personally, but my, this song hit home with deadly accuracy. My therapist had a field day with THIS one.

2. The Politics Of Dancing by Re-Flex

Oy. How could a band that produced an album so good be so ignored? I remember going to buy the album after seeing the video and getting an empty stare from the clerk at Camelot. Yes, it's dance music, but it doesn't merit being filed where I eventually found it: in the "Disco" section. Ye gods.

They had better albums and better (more lucid!) songs, but none that ricked quite as ferociously as this one. I still don't understand the rather cryptic lyrics--they don't refer to race as much as attitude, if I recall George's defense--but I respond to the beat. Powerful, even today.

I have so many I could list, it's had to cull it down to 10. The Call's "Let The Day Begin" is still a favorite, even if Al Gore used it as his rally cry to no avail (sigh.) The long (album) version of "Welcome To The Pleasuredome" is another guilty pleasure, and I may be one of the few people who actually enjoyed Frankie Goes To Hollywood's followup, "Liverpool". Dead Kennedys' "Holiday In Cambodia" is still powerful, and remember Blacmange? Anything by the Cocteau Twins is worth listening to ("Musette And Drums" is my favorite) and plenty of 4AD artists still get lots of airtime in my house: Dead Can Dance, Throwing Muses, and Colourbox, whose one album was a total rock out. I could go on all day, but we're running out of bandwidth...

"There's a club if you'd like to go, you could meet somebody who really loves you. So you go and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own, and you go home and you cry and you want to die" Heartbreakingly real.

The 80's were the turning point for life in America, such as cable TV, Video Games, Compact Disc's, and Computers. Its a time gone by and ill miss it, Movies such as Back to the Future ( my favorite )Goonies,Ghostbusters, and The Breakfast Club, Television shows such as The A-Team, Family Ties ( my favorite ) and Cheers. Great Memories and Great times, adios

Remember when we used to sing this song and it seemed like 1999 was soooo far in the future?!? We thought we'd NEVER see the day! Now the year has come and gone, but this will always be one of my favorite party songs!

To this day, this song makes me think of my crushes in grade school and junior high. "I know a guy who's tough but sweet...he's so fine he can't be beat! Got everything that I desire...sets the summer sun on fire!"

5. Celebration by Kool & the Gang

Makes me think of 8th grade graduation, high school graduation, college graduation! "We're going to have a good time tonight...let's celebrate...it's all right!!"

I wanted to BE Madonna when I was in junior high! She was so cool, sexy and rebellious! This is my favorite 80s song of hers! The amazing thing about Madonna is that she's cool, sexy & rebellious to this day! I still wouldn't mind being her! One of my top 5 all time favorite artists!

I haven't seen a single mention of Mr. Mellencamp on any other list! How can you have a Top 10 list with out one of his "Little Ditties"?!? This song is the epitome of high school sweethearts, "growing up in the Heartland!"

Another Makes-Me-Want-to-Dance-Song! "I swear at this moment, you mean EVERYTHING to me!" An eternal 80s great!

1. Walking on Sunshine by Katrina & the Waves

My ULTIMATE HAPPY song! I can't sit still when I hear it! I'll be 60 and still singing "I used to think maybe you loved me, now baby I'm sure!"

I consider myself an 80s addict! I listen to the 80s station on the radio, on my computer, and have every Best of the 80s CD I could find! I just happened upon your webpage and am thrilled to see how many other Children of the 80s there are out there! Thanks!!

This *was* created in the eighties right? Like...'89? Anyway, this song has got to be the most incredible soul/r&b/jazz song ever written and performed. Never has a song described death and grief so eloquently, elementally, and become so ingrained in our minds that whenever we listen to it, we can't help but shed a tear for anyone who has experienced the desolate loneliness of someone's death.

The catchiest pop song, and the some of the best vocals Madonna has ever produced.

As a a grown teen in high school, I guess you might say my choices are rather limited to what I've heard through much of my life. My choices cannot be considered..."considerably" credible, because I have not had the experience with eighties music that most of you guys have had. However, I *do* recognize pretty good music when I hear it, and lately I've had to reach back to the early nineties and eighties in order to attain that good music which has...passed away in our modern times of synthetic art.